WBCOOP Event #23 NLHE Big Antes

Hello!

These past days I live and breathe WBCOOP. My daily routine can be resumed in the following way: I wake up, get a coffee, wait for André to finish his daily training and then we come to the office. I start playing my WBCOOP events, have lunch somewhere along the way and keep playing until they're over. Then, I dedicate my time to my favorite part: blogging! I thought there would be some time in all that for my normal hyper grinding, but I was mistaken. I'm 100% devoted to the WBCOOP.

Dinner in front of the computer. Blogging is serious business, no dinner breaks allowed.

In this post, we'll be discussing event #23 NLHE Big Antes. Once again, I had never tried out this format before the WBCOOP. At least this one has simply got a different structure so there was no need for me to go study rules... The tournament gathered a total of 509 players, so I knew it would be some time before it reached the bubble. I decided to be prudent and play my strong hands only, avoiding complicated situations.

I really like it when I make plans to do one thing and then I go ahead and do something completely different! Don't ask me why, I don't have an answer. But I can tell you that I was all but prudent in this tourney! 

The first hand worth of mention is a JTo that I got dealt while on the SB. Action was folded to the button who called. Since I only had to put half a blind and I had the antes looking at me with lust from the middle of the table, I called. The flop came 8c-Td-Ts. I was pretty sure I had the best hand but I checked and so did the big blind. The player on the button bet 160 chips into a pot of 192. I called and the big blind folded. The turn was a 4 of hearts. The button bet again, 200. I called. The river was 4 of diamonds, giving me a full house. I bet small, 200 chips in the hopes of being re-raised since my opponent seemed so eager to put money in. To my disappointment, he just called. He had 58s and I won the hand.

Then I got a tricky one. Pocket Queens. I min-raised from UTG+1 and got a call from a player in middle position and the big blind. The flop was Qs-3h-4c. Nothing sweeter than hitting your set against two opponents! The big blind checked and I bet half the pot. I got called by the MP player but the big blind folded. Turn: 7 of clubs. I bet half the pot again and he called. It was the river that made things complicated: J of clubs. He could have hit a backdoor flush. Then again, I was holding the Queen of clubs so that decreased the chances of him having two cards of the same suit (clubs). I bet half the pot again, but this time he shoved. Was I willing to risk pretty much all my chips on this play? I was. I called and was relieved when he showed QJ of hearts. I guess I was lucky that he hit a top pair with good kicker on the flop and decided to stick around until the shove with the two pair. Too bad for him I was always ahead on this one.

Later on, I got some of my own medicine where a similar hand played out. Only this time, I was the one holding the top two pair willing to risk all my chips, while my opponent was successfully set mining with his little pair of pocket twos. Well that mine definitely blew up in my face!

Realizing that the mining business obviously paid off, I put another bomb with my pocket 77s. That brought me some of my lost chips back.

In the meantime and while I was waiting for good hands to show up, I started noticing that I was never able to steal the blinds. That was kind of frustrating, cause as you can imagine, in a big antes tournament there's added value to the art of stealing the blinds. Unfortunately for me, the player seated on my left must have had a faulty software cause he had no fold button. Whenever I tried to steal something, he would either re-raise me or call and never get off the hand. At some point, after getting to the river of a hand against him I was forced to fold, but I took some time to do it. While I was thinking and the clock was ticking on my side, he sent me a devil smiley in the chat! You know, the one that had a red face, two little horns and a look that says "I'm owning you badly"? I folded that one, but I was decided to get revenge!

I got my opportunity with this hand some minutes later. On a board of Ac-Qc-2s, I was sure that I was beating him with the queen of diamonds I had in my hand. I didn't care about the flush draw. I didn't care about the 5 of clubs on the turn that could be making his flush. I didn't care about the second Ace on the turn. I stayed in the hand, betting until the end. He showed KTo OWNED! Hahahahahahahaha! (Evil laugh!)

Anyway, I won a few nice pots after that but nothing crazy. I maintained myself slightly above the average stack for the most part, and with the small incoming pots I managed to get up to 55th place with around 160 players still left in the tournament. Things were going well.

And then someone turned the doomswitch on. I got ATo and I decided to raise it from middle position. Nothing wrong with that, you're probably thinking, only I had the chipleader of the table on my left. We hadn't been seating next to each other for long, so I didn't really know what to expect of him. He re-raised me, but I only had to call 360 to claim a 1236 chips pot and I was holding a decent hand, so I went with it. Flop: 9h - Ah - 3d. Okay, so I had top pair. Not bad! I checked and he bet half the pot, an expected continuation to his pre-flop raise. I called. Turn: Ks. I checked and he bet two thirds of the pot. That's when I started thinking, okay, this is getting out of hand. But I couldn't let go of my top pair for some reason. I called again. By the time the river was reavealed (7c) the pot was 7,3k and I had 6,6k chips behind. I had invested more than a third of my stack there, so I didn't want to fold. Since I'd probably call a shove, I figured I'd better shove it first. And that's what I did. He called and showed AKs. Well played sir... But not on my part.

The tournament was over for me and I couldn't stop thinking about how I played that last hand. I felt like I gave away all my chips in a spot where I didn't have to, but then again I'm not sure exactly at what part I played it wrong. Maybe... From the beginning till the end? Lol...If you have any suggestions, please enlighten me in the comments.

I finished in 161rst place and out of the money. I feel like I could have easily won a ticket on this one considering how it was going... But oh well! My total WBCOOP score so far is 3 cashes out of 7 tournaments for a total of $33 in tickets! Not bad, but I'll be sincere: the fun I'm getting while playing this WBCOOP series is worth more than those 33 dollars! :)

Next stop... Event #27 NLHE Turbo! Stay tuned!